Him Always him
by ijustlovemesomefriedchicken
Summary: Dan is haunted by his best friend; neither of them can move on after his horrible death which Dan naturally blames himself for. But there's something more to it and Dan knows exactly what. He himself knows what he's done and can never forgive himself until HE does and he makes the ultimate sacrifice.


_Hello there. My name is Dan Howell. _

_Any questions? No, because you are a piece of paper. I must be mad, staying up this late just to write this. But it had to be at this time, it had to be tonight, it had to be in this room and it had to be on this particular sheet of paper from a very particular notepad. Maybe I'm just going insane, but maybe this might work._

_It's been a whole year to the day. The day my life changed; I could never forget it. They said he was going to live. They told me in confidence the only way he would die is if he wasn't careful looking both ways before crossing the street. I was so happy, so overjoyed. After all the chemotherapy my dear friend had been through, he was going to make it. And he could finally be happy and enjoy life again._

_Everything went back to normal for a long while after that. Everything seemed fine, like the cancer had been in a dream, in another life. He would sometimes bring it up, or make small mentions of it, but other than that we hardly spoke of it, putting it behind us. _

_He was always so gentle, so kind...he didn't deserve to get that foul beast clogging up his brains. Sure, they removed the tumor, but the fact it had been there in the first place still enraged me. He said to me the night before the operation while watching Dr Who- one of the few things that seemed to cheer him up back then- "Dan, what would you do if you were in my shoes?"_

_And I answered truthfully. "I'm in enough pain in my shoes, I can't imagine what it must be like in yours."_

_He always understood me like no one else ever did. I never understood him much, though I'd try as much as possible to listen. And I'd be there. I'd always be there. I sat by that hospital bed more than a year ago for nights and nights on end, cup after cup of coffee, so I could stay awake to keep him calm and peaceful face company. He'd deteroited again. I remember nagging at him to go back to the hospital when I dared to bring it up, telling him he would only get worse if he didn't; I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so, man._

_He didn't look at all in pain, like he did back at home, where he would wince when he stood up and such things. He looked totally at peace, his face almost the same shade of pure white as the sheets surrounding him. I stayed with him untill the very end. _

_I'm ashamed to say this, but I promised him I would confess everything; not that he doesn't already know from my deepest nightmares. But the fact remained there were days where I would wish death upon him, for him just to hurry up and go already. I couldn't bear to see him like that, and it was my own selfishness that killed him in the end. He was going to get better, then I somehow awoke the beast again with my stupid thoughts._

_Whoever is finding his however long later is probably thinking I'm insane. As I said before, maybe I am. Maybe I just might be. But I know what has happened in this house. He has haunted me. He's been unable to pass on, unable to find peace like he did in that hospital. He's been trapped here; he's not been letting me sleep or think or do anything. Guilt. It's all around me. It's everywhere I look. It's written all over his face everytime I turn around. He's there. He's always there. Right behind me, reminding me of what I've done._

_He follows me around like a poltergeist; writting things on the wall, moving things around, putting flowers on the window sill and leaving lion ornaments and toys around for me to find. He likes to mess with technology the best, like putting the most haunting pictures as my screen-saver, replacing the one of me and him with our arms round each other's shoulders. He makes my phone freeze all the time, sending texts from some unknown source, sending me voice recordings of him. Of his voice. He screams in them, he cries in them; most of the time I can't work out what he's saying, sometimes I don't even bother opening them._

_How I've put up with it for the past three hundred and sixty-five days, I don't know. I remember at his funeral- most of the Phandom traveling to England to pay their respects- I stood up at the Priest's podium and gave a big long speech about how we met over the internet and how he was one of the ones that first got me into YouTube. I told the hundreds of fans before me about how he was the reason most of them knew me, how I would have been nothing, a no one, without him. How lost I'll be without my best friend. I told them all about how generous he was, about how clumsy and silly and stupid he was, how he was one of the most amazing people I would ever meet in my entire life. His mum started crying round about this point, as did I but I carried on. I went on to tell a completely sobbing congregation about my closest friend, how he didn't want to tell any of his fans about his cancer to the very end, to let them enjoy his videos as normal and let his last days be his happiest. He said he was glad of this decision when the doctors told us he had a very good chance of living. He'd go on, they said, to a ripe old age. But they were wrong. I told them, in my opinion, I thought Phil would've told them in his last days, lying in hospital hardly able to move. He'd have made a video, trying to break the news in as cushioned a way as possible, but he never got the chance. I started to ignore the piece of paper in front of me and tell them about the dream I had; how when he had gone, his videos would be his legacy, he'd become one of the most subscribed people on YouTube and he'd become famous, like an artist does from beyond the grave._

_I have no idea how I managed to stand up there in front of everyone that loved Phil, knowing I killed him. Knowing what I did. How could they have all came up to me after the burial, congratualting me on how moving my speech was? I KILLED HIM. _

_This all needs to stop right now, I need to wake up from my dream. I need to patch things up, I can't go on 'for the simple fact that it would make him happy' anymore. Because it isn't making him happy, and I knew that when I said it. I'd always been a good liar, even lying to myself for so long. But he won't have it._

_It's almost time and what I have to do is clear. I can hear him whispering, and as frustrating as always I don't have a clue what he's saying. I have to do it now or my window of oppertunity will be missed. I can't stand this empty flat any longer. The worst thing is it's not even empty. I must leave everyone and everything that I've sworn to stick by behind. This is something I must do, and I must pay for what I have done._

_This is for you, Phil. I'll make it up to you, I promise._

I wiped my tear-stained face as best as I could before I put them back, as much the way I had found them as I could manage. I had no idea he was feeling like this, that all of this was going on...in his videos he always looked so normal and sane, in person he was even more himself. But he couldn't have been less the normal Dan Howell, could he?

"Dan..." I whispered.

There were footsteps outside of Phil's room all of a sudden, and the candle suddenly relit itself, the flame shaking violently.

"Is anyone there?!" I called in my most confident voice, though it shook.

Silence. A pure, thourough silence, not even the tipsy candle making any quivering noises. Then, "Carrie?"

The door opened slowly to reveal a slightly nervous Cat. Her hands were shaking a bit and her eyes kept darting around the room. Even now, a year later, the memories he and her had shared in this room still haunted her. Lions everywhere, his bed still made...

"You scared the life out of me."

"Sorry," she said quietly.

I smiled sadly. "Come look at this. Dan wrote it. Last night I'm guessing, or maybe the night before. It sounds like a suicide note, but Dan...?"

It took her a long time to read the note fully; she broke down into fits of tears halfway through and I had to hug her untill her shoulders stopped shaking, and even then she hadn't stopped crying completely. She got to the end of it at last. "How could Dan have killed him?"

"He was maybe just blaming himself for his death...he was his closest friend bar you, Cat."

KNOCK KNOCK. Pause. KNOCK. Pause. KNOCK.

We both jumped out of our skins, leaping to our feet. "What was that?"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

KNOCK KNOCK.

KNOCK KNOCK. Pause. KNOCK KNOCK.

"That sounds a bit like..."

"..Morse code?" I finnished.

We exchanged a quick glance in the thick silence that fell, before it was broken yet again. Everything started happening at once; the light began to flicker on and off while swinging around madly, there was his chuckling from all over the house, footsteps from all over where he'd been...and that _knocking. _It was so rapid, so angry, so unlike him it was uncomprehendable.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Then a horrible screaming; a _screech_ so high pitched it could hardly be heard.

The light flickered off for a good few seconds longer than it had been doing and when it came back on...when it came back on, the room was filled with..._him_. There was about twenty, all doing twenty different things; one was crying on his bed, one was putting socks together and putting them in the drawer, one was hugging an invisable Dan...

The light flickered again, and suddenly all them had moved. They were all in a tight circle around us, all wearing the most spine-chilling smiles; none of them reaching their horribly glass-like eyes or their whiskered cheeks. It was probably the most horrible to see the contrast between the cuteness of the whiskers and the vacant looks in all of his eyes. Also, one other thing; if I wasn't mistaken, the whiskers were red.

The room starting spinning around us, them all playing ring around the rosies with us, the knocking, the screaming, the flickering...then nothing.

All was silent again. A slip of paper floated down from the ceiling. Cat got to it first and I read over her shoulder.

In Dan's handwriting: _I'm sorry._

Then underneath in Phil's: _Apology accepted. _

**So please comment and favourite it or molest it if you enjoyed it and I'd also be very grateful to anyone who would check out my YouTube; LaurenToTheCore.**

**Also, if anyone's a vloggery type person, SHOW YOURSELF. I always like to watch peoples like that c;**

**so yeah, hope you enjoyed and more creative and not cheesy and stupid stuff like this to come hopefully, since this was really fun to write! **


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